(Download) "Evelyn Waugh's Central London: A Gazetteer." by Evelyn Waugh Newsletter and Studies * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free

May 18, 2021

eBook details

Title: Evelyn Waugh's Central London: A Gazetteer.
Author : Evelyn Waugh Newsletter and Studies
Release Date : January 22, 2011
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
Pages : * pages
Size : 199 KB

Description

"I believe the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Hyde Park encloses more intelligence and human ability, to say nothing of wealth and beauty, than the world has ever collected in such a space before." So said Sydney Smith, whose exuberant wit matched Waugh's, and who, like Waugh, was domiciled during the later years of his life in the village of Combe Florey, Somersetshire, where he was the rector. Both were ambivalent about the delights of country living, and seized many opportunities of fleeing from it to London. Waugh, like Frank Churchill in Jane Austen's Emma, used to travel there regularly to have his hair cut, at Trumper's in Curzon Street. Smith had a better excuse: as a canon of St Paul's Cathedral, he had to spend a certain amount of the year in residence there. Smith's parallelogram (Mayfair) is of course only a tiny section of "Greater London." Waugh's London also includes outlying areas such as Mortlake, where Virginia Troy and Uncle Peregrine were buried, and East Finchley, site of Lord Copper's frightful mansion. The ancient "City of London," founded in Roman times, lies to the east of Mayfair. The City of Westminster began much later, in the eleventh century, when King Edward the Confessor decided to build, on the marshy bank of the Thames, the abbey called the "west minster" (the "east minster" being St Paul's in the old City, still the cathedral of the diocese of London). Though it is known as "the West End," innumerable Londoners have to travel east to see a popular show. It is still the center of British government, society, and the arts. The old "City" (of London) is devoted almost exclusively to business and finance, and did not hold much interest for Waugh. Many of the names of districts ("Soho," "Pimlico," "Belgravia") are simply popular ones with no official standing, and some belong to governmental entities other than Westminster, such as "The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea" ("royal" because the royal palace of Kensington stands on the western edge of Kensington Gardens).